Emergency Medicine Services in Rural Hospitals: Exploring the Challenges and Quality Improvement with a Systematic Literature Review
List of Authors
Grace Ern Hui Voon, Han Yong Lim
Keyword
Rural; Emergency Medicine; Challenges; Barriers
Abstract
The objective of this review is to systematically gather information from existing publications discussing the delivery of emergency medicine services in rural hospitals, including operational and workforce challenges, communication effectiveness, care of multicultural rural populations, and implications for quality of care. A literature search was conducted by using the PubMed database. Fifteen articles fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were included in this systematic literature review, comprising systematic or scoping reviews, observational studies, cross-sectional studies, and qualitative surveys. The studies were based in different countries and regions worldwide, including Germany, Canada, Nigeria, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. The results of this review indicate that the main challenges and barriers in rural emergency medicine are resource limitations, manpower shortage, unstandardized referral systems, and sociocultural barriers. Hence, infrastructure investment, workforce development, stronger coordination and teamwork between facilities, and culturally related care models tailored to specific populations are required to refine rural emergency services.